This is the class blog for Eng 1102 at GA Tech called "Fiction, Human Rights, and Social Responsibility." The purpose of this blog is to extend our discussion beyond the classroom and to become aware of human rights issues that exist in the world today and how technology has played a role in either solving or aggravating them. Blogs will be a paragraph long (250 words) and students will contribute once every three weeks according to class number. Entries must be posted by Friday midnight.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sochi Olympics: Gay Rights and the Power of the Boycott

In recent months, the Russian
government led by political juggernaut Vladimir Putin has begun an intense anti-LGBT
campaign in the country that seemingly outlaws anything that can be remotely
connected with homosexuality. Any attempts to protest the laws have been met
with swift and gruesome violence, with several gay pride events being broken up
by police and anti-gay protestor brutality. This war on homosexuality has been
brought to the forefront recently thanks to the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics,
as some around the world look to the United States for leadership as to what
stance should be taken. Some LGBT activists have gone so far as to promote a
boycott of the Sochi Games in protest of Russia's brutal policies. Others say
that the Games will provide a stage on which to engage in a more meaningful
protest of the discrimination and violence occurring within Russia.

I tend to side with those who
oppose a boycott. The only other boycott in U.S. history came in 1980, once
again in Russia, this time at the height of the Cold War. The boycott is
largely seen as ineffective and is poorly remembered as it kept hundreds of
deserving athletes from competing. The far greater gesture of protest comes at
the games themselves, like in 1968 when John Carlos and Tommie Smith took the
podium with fists held high. A boycott will only rob someone, possibly even a
gay athlete, of the chance to make their own iconic protest in the face of laws
that could even directly harm them while they are in Russia for the Games. The
threat of arrest or violence would make the protest that much more potent in
spreading the message of defiance in the face of oppression and brutality. The
choice is clear. Rather than rob athletes of their lifelong goals for the sake
of a political statement, we should allow them to make their own proclamation,
from the medal stand, that this type of moral failure is not tolerable. I'm sure the shouts of a champion will be louder than the silence of a government.